Male and female brains

I've always been a little puzzled by transsexuals.  I think of myself as male because of the obvious physical evidence; I don't have any internal feeling that it's somehow "right" for me to be male (or wrong, for that matter).  It's not that I'm indifferent; I'm actually quite comfortable with a lot of aspects of being male, and happy playing a lot of male roles, and if it were easy to choose one's gender I would certainly not choose to change (though if it were very easy to switch back and forth I'm sure I'd try out being female for a short time).  I can easily imagine someone having other preferences than mine, though, and wanting to be female.  But transsexuals almost never describe things in terms of wanting to be the other gender, they claim to somehow know that they really are the other gender (interesting critical discussion here).  Of course, this could be strategic (people are generally hostile to the idea of others doing non-conforming things involving sex and gender simply because they want to; think of how the anti-gay crowd pushes the line that homosexuality is a "choice," as if that would somehow make it wrong), but the impression that I get from what transsexuals say or write is that that wouldn't be the whole story.

There are surely a lot of things going on here.  For one, being a cisgendered male is a position of some degree of privilege, and so the invisibility of privilege is operative; in many cases being a member of a privileged group is usually not conceived of as a special part of one's nature, but rather just as being normal and something one doesn't think about.  I believe women are more likely than men to view sex as an essential property (in the philosophical sense), probably for this reason.  I'm generally skeptical of essences on philosophical grounds, so to the extent that this is what's at work, I suppose I tend to think that this is one more tiny example of the numerous ways in which the privileged are advantaged; they are less tempted by faulty metaphysical views about themselves.

On the other hand, there's a reason so many philosophers for the past few centuries have set themselves the task of tearing down Cartesian dualism; it's incredibly seductive.  Maybe despite my materialism, my tendency to view my sex as non-essential owes more than I would like to admit to some lingering tendency to think of my mind as the "real me", and my body, where my sex resides, as just something that happens to be attached to my mind.

So, which is it?  Am I still a closet Cartesian, as Rorty thought all of us analytic philosophers still were, or am I just a good anti-essentialist?  I'm really not sure.

Comments

[Richard]

"But transsexuals almost never describe things in terms of wanting to be the other gender, they claim to somehow know that they really are the other gender"

Robin Hanson's theory of identity might help make sense of this, especially if complemented by the idea that they already ("really") have the dispositions to more easily construct and abide by a transgendered identity.

[The Wizard of Oz]

Data point from someone inhabiting a female body: I can't detect an internal sensation of my sex or gender either. Transsexual people definitely face even more cultural pressure than the rest of us to impose an essentialist narrative on their experience: they have to convince their doctors and insurance providers that they really need medical stuff like hormones and surgery.

I suppose it's conceptually possible that some people have a gendered essence perceptible through introspection and others don't.

I've never quite understood why women would have more reason than men sex as an essential property. I'd have thought that the most obvious way of psychologically coping with belonging to a low status group was to think of that group identity as something imposed from outside, and unrelated to one's true self. (This is all compatible with the claim that women are more likely than men to view sex as an essential property, and just I don't have a good explanation of why. I'd like more data on this point, though.)

Also: how have you been? Australia is treating me well, but keeping me busy.

[www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnxJ4f7MH5TOcsHH4TXJwXvI_WUBM4iNr8]

I've never quite understood why women would have more reason than men sex as an essential property. I'd have thought that the most obvious way of psychologically coping with belonging to a low status group was to think of that group identity as something imposed from outside, and unrelated to one's true self.

This reminds me of the idea that (in the United States) African-Americans are more conscious of racism because it impinges on their daily life and seldom allowed to forget their 'place', while many 'whites' as a privileged class can be blissfully unaware of the basic injustice of a social system where they are the beneficiaries and come to think of the way things are as simply 'natural'. It's more important for the oppressed to be aware of their relatively low status because transgressions are punished, and more necessary for the oppressed to have some understanding of their oppressors because that is a part of their environment with potentially lethal consequences unless understood.

As far as the discussion on transsexuals in the link is concerned, I must admit that there is a lot I don't understand and clearly many of the posters don't agree either (though clearly a lot of thought has gone into it). Being in a privileged caste, I suppose there is so much which I am free to ignore.